03-10-2021
The philosopher Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism states:
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, [right and wrong], no longer exist.”
She concludes her final work The Life of the Mind:
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
This is what she called the “banality of evil”. The contemporary philosopher Jack Made, in commenting on Hannah Arendt states:
“The ‘banality of evil’ is the idea that evil does not have the Satan-like, villainous appearance we might typically associate it with. Rather, evil is perpetuated when immoral principles become normalized over time by unthinking people. Evil becomes commonplace; it becomes the everyday. Ordinary people — going about their everyday lives — become complicit actors in systems that perpetuate evil.”
This is happening today all around the world on a massive scale. And yet those who should know better—the “intellectuals” and the “leaders” of communities and industries—live comfortably in the ‘unbearable shallowness of being’.
They avoid confrontation with the depth of reality as well as with other humans in any meaningful way, including those who promote themselves as “philosophical” to their peers vaingloriously. They choose success inside the corrupt system that provides them with wealth, recognition, and status over working to resolve the real issues that cause massive suffering.
The prime mover of the world, and therefore history, is IDEA. Today the economic-political power centers have completely taken over the ideological power centers—the academia & the media. The global totalitarian tyranny propagates a certain ideology, programmed into the minds of both youths and adults, transforming itself from an ideology to a psychology.
We who have the commitment to a systemic transformation, within & without, should not partake of the corrupt system, within & without. Those who avoid confronting the evil within & without, those who can comfortably dwell in the “unbearable shallowness of being”, and those who are unwilling to delve deep into the root causes of things (this is the definition of being radical), are not qualified to be engaged in and to lead the work of transformation of any kinds.